SnowfallKeyPress

*** Version 1.6.1 is temporarily unavailable while I work on a new version. In the interim, you can still download version 1.4. ***

This addon accelerates key bindings so that they are activated by key press rather than key release. This allows you to activate your abilities faster than you could otherwise. This can really make a difference for situations where you need to react quickly, like when casting heals, when dispelling, when interrupting spells, or in PvP. In these situations, the addon can have an effect similar to reducing your network latency by 100ms. Of course, the exact impact depends entirely upon how much time you personally spend between key press and release.

"Dude, this addon is going to increase my DPS by so much!" No, it's not. DPS rotations (or even priority systems) are not to any great extent affected by latency. Because they're predictable, good players can anticipate what's coming next and compensate for latency. In fact, if you're a good player who is already compensating for the press-to-release latency, you may actually find that your DPS goes down when you first use this addon until you learn to readjust to the reduced latency. Find a target dummy and practice your rotation until you're comfortable with the changed timing.

Configuration

There is an in-game configuration GUI accessible through the usual Options->Interface->Addons menu. From this panel, you can add or remove keys and mouse buttons to be accelerated. You can also globally enable or disable all key acceleration.

The GUI provides exceptionally fast entry--you can enter your whole keyboard in seconds and all your mouse buttons in a few more seconds. The easiest way to understand this GUI is to start by hitting the "Clear All" button and then adding and removing some keys. In order to add just one key or mouse button, hover over the "+" button and type the key or press the mouse button (including whatever modifiers you desire). In order to remove that key, hover over the "-" button and type that same key with its modifiers. In order to enter all 8 of a key's modified and unmodified combinations with just one key press, hover over the "+ (Modifiers: All)" button and type the key.

If you want to do mass entry of modified and unmodified keys and mouse buttons, hit the "Clear All" button. Then hover over the "+ (Modifiers: All)" button and face-roll your way across keyboard and mouse buttons. You're done.

The default configuration accelerates all the modified and unmodified keys on a standard 104-key US keyboard (except PRINTSCREEN) plus mouse buttons 3-5. If you'd like to get back to this configuration at any time, simply hit the "Reset To Defaults" button.

Mouse Buttons

SnowfallKeyPress accelerates key bindings of mouse buttons, but it doesn't accelerate mouse button clicks that interact directly with frames without any associated key binding. This means that although SnowfallKeyPress is compatible with click-casting addons like Clique and Vuhdo, it won't accelerate their mouse clicks. Vuhdo already provides its own mouse click acceleration, though, and perhaps Clique will at some point, as well. Until then, you can add support yourself by navigating to Interface\Addons\Clique, editing Clique.lua and CliqueOptions.lua, searching for instances of "AnyUp", and replacing them with "AnyDown".

Mouse scroll-wheel bindings do not need any acceleration, so don't be concerned that SnowfallKeyPress offers no way to accelerate them. Each "tick" of the mouse scroll wheel is, in effect, already a simultaneous press and release.

Made some infrastructure changes that should be invisible to the user, but which should improve compatibility with addons written in the future that may have more complex behaviors than we generally see in addons today.

Originally posted by Dayn I've released version 1.1, which I think should be compatible with everything. If you find something that's not compatible, please report it here.

I've also added the ability to configure which keys are accelerated and which are not. For now, you will have to be able to use a text editor outside the game to add/remove keys, although I'm thinking about adding an in-game configuration for that purpose. English language clients/keyboards should have everything accelerated by default. If you want to remove acceleration of certain keys, or if you want to add keys for another language/region, then you can do so in the configuration file.

I've released version 1.1, which I think should be compatible with everything. If you find something that's not compatible, please report it here.

I've also added the ability to configure which keys are accelerated and which are not. For now, you will have to be able to use a text editor outside the game to add/remove keys, although I'm thinking about adding an in-game configuration for that purpose. English language clients/keyboards should have everything accelerated by default. If you want to remove acceleration of certain keys, or if you want to add keys for another language/region, then you can do so in the configuration file.

Originally posted by Dayn
I have never used Clique, but my understanding is that it works based upon mouse button clicks on frames rather than on key bindings. I don't have any plans to modify mouse click behavior in SnowfallKeyPress. The reason is that there are all kinds of complex behaviors that addons can create based upon mouse button up/down, and there isn't a good way to just "convert everything to mousedown" because that would interfere with a lot of things. Even the default Blizzard action bars have complex behavior on mouse up/down (like drag and drop of actions), and these should not be messed with.

In the short term, I'd suggest one of these two solutions for you:

1) Use mouseover macros instead of Clique. These are supported by SnowfallKeyPress just fine. This is what I'd do if I currently played a healer, because I think it's important to have as much of the user-input part of your user interface using the stock Blizzard functionality as possible (yes, I see the irony!). That way, you won't be unable to cast when addons are broken in the next patch or due to addon bugs. Also, if you have to temporarily deinstall an addon, you won't be dead in the water because your ability to cast spells was tied up in that one addon. With mouseover macros, you are supported by Blizzard and are always good to go.

2) Use Vuhdo instead of Grid+Clique. Based upon what I've read, Vuhdo supports click casting based upon mouse down.

Longer term, perhaps Clique will support casting on mouse down like Vuhdo does.

Thanks for the quick and thorough response. I am currently considering the options you've mentioned. Thanks again for the great mod.

Originally posted by Dayn
SnowfallKeyPress doesn't support specific action bar addons per se. Rather, it supports certain types of bindings. In particular, it supports key bindings of the Blizzard actions, it supports key bindings of macros, and it supports button-click key bindings that addons create that 1) appear in Options->Keybindings and 2) don't appear to be already sensitive to separate up/down key behavior.

That being said, if you point me to a download link for nurfed (I wasn't aware it was still alive), I'll take a look at it.

It's Nurfed 2 in 5 pieces or so, It's currently in beta but coming along nicely, I really hope it becomes possible because I really like my nurfed ui but this is forcing me to use default bars for now.

Ok I understand for this to work I would have to use a bar mod that uses the keybinds from the default UI which nurfed uses it's own keybinding system which is why I like it so much. So for the Keypress to be the system it would have to be hard coded into nurfed or can this not be done unless it's through Blizzard?

Originally posted by Forage Are there any other bar mods that you plan to support as this feature would be great to have it just doesn't help certain bar mods out there.

For example I use nurfed and this has no effect at all, It would be nice if it did but if it's not possible then I understand that as well.

SnowfallKeyPress doesn't support specific action bar addons per se. Rather, it supports certain types of bindings. In particular, it supports key bindings of the Blizzard actions, it supports key bindings of macros, and it supports button-click key bindings that addons create that 1) appear in Options->Keybindings and 2) don't appear to be already sensitive to separate up/down key behavior.

That being said, if you point me to a download link for nurfed (I wasn't aware it was still alive), I'll take a look at it.

Originally posted by betazen Is it possible to get this to work with Clique?

It would be a great healing tool. Thanks.

I have never used Clique, but my understanding is that it works based upon mouse button clicks on frames rather than on key bindings. I don't have any plans to modify mouse click behavior in SnowfallKeyPress. The reason is that there are all kinds of complex behaviors that addons can create based upon mouse button up/down, and there isn't a good way to just "convert everything to mousedown" because that would interfere with a lot of things. Even the default Blizzard action bars have complex behavior on mouse up/down (like drag and drop of actions), and these should not be messed with.

In the short term, I'd suggest one of these two solutions for you:

1) Use mouseover macros instead of Clique. These are supported by SnowfallKeyPress just fine. This is what I'd do if I currently played a healer, because I think it's important to have as much of the user-input part of your user interface using the stock Blizzard functionality as possible (yes, I see the irony!). That way, you won't be unable to cast when addons are broken in the next patch or due to addon bugs. Also, if you have to temporarily deinstall an addon, you won't be dead in the water because your ability to cast spells was tied up in that one addon. With mouseover macros, you are supported by Blizzard and are always good to go.

2) Use Vuhdo instead of Grid+Clique. Based upon what I've read, Vuhdo supports click casting based upon mouse down.

Longer term, perhaps Clique will support casting on mouse down like Vuhdo does.

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